Sound Studies in Curriculum Workshop 2024
Professional volunteers shared examples of a module, exercise, or bibliography that they used effectively in their classes during the Sound Studies in the Curriculum Workshop 2024 held at the Sound Studies Section business meeting on Saturday, October 19, 2024.
We are happy to share the presented materials with the community!
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Presenters:
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Antía González Ben, University of Toronto
I teach the graduate seminar Sound Studies and Music Education at our institution every fall. One of the assignments is the “Audiobiography,” in which students create a 4–6-minute autobiographical sound recording accompanied by written liner notes (300–500 words). I invite students to interpret the idea of a life trajectory broadly (e.g., they may recreate one day in their lives or situate themselves in relation to their ancestors and offspring). In the liner notes, students draw connections between ideas from the course readings, their personal sonic experiences, and the sound artifact they just created.
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Chris DeLaurenti, Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University
This presentation will outline the first assignment in my long-running Sound Studies course: the Earplug Listening Social Report. The ELSR asks students to venture into multiple contexts while wearing earplugs. Through writing and collective discussion, students reflect on their experiences in tandem with two key critical frameworks—Schaferian and Schaefferian listening. Texts by artist-advocates Pauline Oliveros and Christine Sun Kim; otorhinolaryngologist Takeo Kobayashi; William Renel's seminal "The Auditory Normate"; and the post-apocalyptic short story "Speech Sounds" by Octavia Butler spur collective discussion by challenging as well as amplifying student experiences. This assignment has multiple uses, from fostering empathic experience in aural diversity to preparing students for fieldwork in unfamiliar (or at least contrasting) soundscapes and acoustic communities. My audio production students have found this assignment to be valuable for recalibrating audile technique. The eclectic suite of (short!) texts not only departs from the usual round of chunk-of-chapter or hunk-of-book reading assignments but places fresh and relevant student experience at the core of seminar discussion.
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Eduardo Sato, Virginia Tech School of Performing Arts
I am interested in participating in sharing my experience in adding many elements of sound studies to a general education class that I am currently teaching. The course is called "Living a Musical Life" and has been taught as a kind of introduction to music studies for non-majors, but I am revamping the curriculum to include perspectives that go beyond music. This is a particularly effective approach in my institution that has a large population of undergraduates in STEM and other professional fields and not so much attention to the humanities, so a discussion about non-musical ways to approach sounds has been effective. I intend to share parts of the syllabus and activities and hope to get some comments and ideas from other participants. I think that my main contribution is to open a conversation about sound studies in general education curriculum for undergraduate students.
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Katie Graber, The Ohio State University
Soundscapes of Ohio. I could present about the class as a whole (how it uses sound to study the history and diversity of central Ohio, and how the final Sound Art Project is built into the class to allow students to express their experiences and opinions of their sonic environments). I could also present about one or more individual modules, such as "What is the meaning of silence?" that compares material and metaphorical meanings of silence to the presence and absence of Indigenous people and stories in our area. This presentation would contribute ideas about how we can integrate sound studies into the study of our local environments.
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Jacob Sunshine, Rhodes College
My presentation will center on the process of teaching sound studies at a small liberal arts school with predominantly white, upper-class students, in a predominantly black southern city (Memphis) that has one of the highest urban poverty rates in the country. Originally listed as a 100-level general education course, "Urban Sound Studies," brought in students from across the college with little to no musical experience, and with a wide range of academic interests. Through engaging primarily with sound rather than vision via field recording and sound mapping assignments, students were given the opportunity to focus on their own privilege, and the causes and consequences of inequality in a segregated urban context that frequently renders such forms invisible (yet nonetheless audible). At the same time, my students found the dense theoretical and philosophical literature endemic to sound studies confusing and challenging, and ultimately an obstacle to their own critiques of sound in urban life. As part of the workshop, I will bring my syllabus for the "Urban Sound Studies" course," and hope to engage others in discussion about how to make Sound Studies more accessible for undergraduates without sacrificing the political import of examining social issues through sound.
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Matt Sakakeeny, Tulane University
One module from my couise pairs writings in Sound Studies with writings that are more associated with Black Studies. In the first week, students are introduced to an overview of "noise" and then proceed to a study of how slave songs were interpreted as noise by white listeners. The following week pairs an overview of language with a reading on ideologies of voice in Antiquity, and then students are introduced to a theorization of Black American sermonizing practices. Section members will learn how to integrate broad approaches to sound studies with specific examples from Black studies that will be familiar and accessible to American students.
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